The Scottish Labour party in Fife are asking for a three-week consultation period before any decisions are made on the budget, it was revealed last night.
Thursday will see the local authority outline their budget for the forthcoming financial year and it is expected to include a controversial move to privatise care homes, along with some compulsory redundancies.
The local authority is said to be looking to save around £37 million and these savings will mean some compulsory redundancies and may also lead to cuts to school meals, an increase in charges for community alarms and possible cuts to its social work department.
The SNP/Lib Dem coalition will reveal their budget on Thursday but the possible repercussions of it were criticised last night by the Scottish Labour Party, who are asking for a consultation period of three weeks before any decisions are made.
Fife Labour leader councillor Alex Rowley told The Courier that he believes a fresh approach is required to look at budget matters.
“The role of opposition parties must be to scrutinise the budget being brought forward by the governing party or parties,” he said.
“In truth, this is difficult when the SNP and Lib Dems present their budget package as a take-it-or-leave-it deal on the day and despite our best efforts over the last three years, we have seen it is virtually impossible to influence or change their proposals.
“We therefore need a new way of doing business and we are saying that when Labour are again in administration in Fife we will produce a draft budget with ample time for other parties and organisations to make their views known, and we will do so in a public and
transparent way unlike the current secret, behind-closed-doors approach that is the SNP/Lib Dem budget process in Fife Council.”
He continued, “In Fife Council we have 23 SNP and 21 Lib Dem councillors who vote together on all issues to keep themselves in power, hold all the positions, win all the votes in the committees and listen to no one, even on major budget issues.”
However, the administration are confident their budget measures are necessary for the present economic climate.
Councillor Peter Grant, the leader of the administration in Fife Council, said that the detailed proposals are being “finalised” prior to Thursday’s meeting.
“While we’re going into the most difficult financial circumstances local government has ever experienced, I’m optimistic that a number of key areas of service provision that might have been under threat will be protected for at least the next year,” he said.
“This has been made possible by the efforts of all our staff in becoming more and more efficient in their daily jobs, and by the willingness of the SNP/Liberal Democrat administration to face up to difficult decisions in the past.”